1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrostatic latent image developing toner used in a copier machine, printer, fax machine, etc. Further, the present invention relates to a development unit and an image forming apparatus using the electrostatic latent image developing toner.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, an image forming apparatus, which is capable of obtaining a high resolution print image, provided with a line head (exposure unit) having a 15 to 40 μm diameter exposure spot which exposes a photoreceptor has been used. The diameter of resin mother particles contained in the toner used in the image forming apparatus is less than 4 μm. A problem encountered when using the toner containing the resin mother particles each having a diameter of less than 4 μm is that the toner is easily scattered and it is difficult to feed the toner to a development roller in a compressed manner. One measure to solve the above problem is to mix the resin mother particles and oil.
In order to prevent toner filming on an electrostatic latent image carrier and a development roller, there has been examined a development unit disclosed in, e.g., Patent Document 1 (JP-A-2001-166527). This development unit performs development by adhering a toner obtained by adding silicon oil or fluorine oil to the resin mother particles to a latent image. The toner contains aggregates of the resin mother particles and therefore development processing in the development unit cannot satisfactorily be performed. When oil is added to the resin mother particles each having a diameter of less than 4 μm, a toner containing aggregates of the resin mother particles may be obtained in some cases. In the case where the toner containing aggregates of the resin mother particles each having a diameter of less than 4 μm is used to perform print processing in an image forming apparatus provided with an exposure unit having a 15 to 40 μm diameter exposure spot which exposes a photoreceptor, a high resolution print image cannot be obtained.